Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Princeton University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: Things Fall Together
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Things Fall Together

A Guide to the New Materials Revolution
  • and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2021

About this book

From the visionary founder of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, a manifesto for the dawning age of active materials

Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today's researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. These materials open new directions for industrial innovation and challenge us to rethink the way we build and collaborate with our environment. Things Fall Together is a provocative guide to this emerging, often mind-bending reality, presenting a bold vision for harnessing the intelligence embedded in the material world.

Drawing on his pioneering work on self-assembly and programmable material technologies, Skylar Tibbits lays out the core, frequently counterintuitive ideas and strategies that animate this new approach to design and innovation. From furniture that builds itself to shoes printed flat that jump into shape to islands that grow themselves, he describes how matter can compute and exhibit behaviors that we typically associate with biological organisms, and challenges our fundamental assumptions about what physical materials can do and how we can interact with them. Intelligent products today often rely on electronics, batteries, and complicated mechanisms. Tibbits offers a different approach, showing how we can design simple and elegant material intelligence that may one day animate and improve itself—and along the way help us build a more sustainable future.

Compelling and beautifully designed, Things Fall Together provides an insider's perspective on the materials revolution that lies ahead, revealing the spectacular possibilities for designing active materials that can self-assemble, collaborate, and one day even evolve and design on their own.

Author / Editor information

Skylar Tibbits is founder and codirector of the Self-Assembly Lab and Associate Professor of Design Research in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His books include Active Matter and Self-Assembly Lab: Experiments in Programming Matter. He lives in Boston. Website selfassemblylab.mit.edu Twitter @SkylarTibbits Instagram @skylartibbits

Reviews

"Tibbits' book is a compact, highly readable explanation of the work carried out at the Self-Assembly Lab and some of the other like-minded labs and institutions around the world."---John Hill, A Daily Dose of Architecture Books --- "A subtle yet eye-catching book. . . . Things Fall Together provides an insider’s perspective on the materials revolution that lies ahead."---Jenna Collignon, Western Exteriors Magazine --- "[Things Fall Together] matter-of-factly, without exaggeration or hype, demonstrates that the seemingly wild idea of a biology-like technology is not impossible. . . . Tibbits has done a remarkable service in packing this gigantic vision into a short, readable book. 'Look what is coming!' he says. And we should look."---Kevin Kelly, Reason --- "Things Fall Together upends commonly held presumptions about how the constructed world operates. . . . We need just this kind of bold, cross-disciplinary thinking to unlock the full potential of designed materials—and to realize a future in which materiality is considered at every stage and scale of the design process."---Blaine Brownell, Architect --- "Books like Things Fall Together should be required reading for students and veteran designers alike. It’s time for these ideas about material intelligence to leave the lab; to commingle among designers, architects, and engineers; and to start finding their way into reality. Not just as conceptual explorations, but as part of the fabric of our everyday lives."---Luke T. Baker, Metropolis --- "Finalist for the PROSE Award in Engineering and Technology, Association of American Publishers"

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgments

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Programming Matter

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Computing Is Physical

    15
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Order from Chaos

    41
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Less Is Smart

    57
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Robots without Robots

    77
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Build from the Bottom Up

    97
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Design from the Bottom Up

    117
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Reverse, Reuse, Recycle

    135
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    The Future of Matter Is Evolving

    155
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    175
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    References

    181
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    193
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Image Credits

    211
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
July 15, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9780691189710
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691189710
eBook ISBN: 9780691189710
Keywords for this book
Self-assembly; Designer; Moisture; Functionality (chemistry); Scientist; Top-down and bottom-up design; Technology; Robotics; Materials science; Manufacturing; Computer; Sensor; Capability; Computation; Design; Medical device; Vibration; Product design; Engineering; Textile; Computing; Actuator; Autodesk; Quantity; Smart material; Neil Gershenfeld; Skylar Tibbits; Infrastructure; Semiconductor device fabrication; Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer; Polymer; Printing; Smart products; Transistor; Computer scientist; Iteration; Programmable matter; Thought experiment; Robot; Synthetic biology; Stiffness; Synthetic fiber; Footwear; Biology; Furniture; Clothing; Computer science; Simulation; Self-replication; Recycling; Mass customization; Molecule; Numerical control; Laser cutting; Design tool; Mechanical computer; Shape-memory alloy; Capability (systems engineering); Emerging technologies; Sense and respond; Thermostat; 3D printing; Self-organization; Mass production; Materiality (interior design); Energy development; Surface tension; Lamination; Electricity; Programming language
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
Downloaded on 12.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691189710/html
Scroll to top button